According to The New York Times, Super Sized Cycles, manufactures and adapts bicycles for overweight riders who are too big for conventional bikes. The five-year-old business, which is based in Vermont, had sales last year of $104,000.
The challenge Joan Denizot, the founder, has been agonizing over whether to manufacture bicycles in the United States or to import them from Asia at much lower costs.
Her business is at a crossroads. Though she has increased sales through her Web site every year, she remains barely in the black – and only by paying herself a pittance.
She has been seeking a marketing breakthrough that would enable her to expand her business and thereby aid more people like herself.
Her enterprise might be considered a niche business, except that it is aimed at a growing segment of the population: the obese, who according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, number about one in every three adults.
Her bikes, which range from $699 to $3,395, feature broader, sturdier wheels and tires, wider seats and pedal placement, and strong steel frames. She said one model can support riders weighing as much as 550 pounds. Over all, she sells about 100 bikes a year.
“Eventually, the big bike builders are going to wake up,” Ms. Denizot said. “And when they do, they’re not going to fool around with having them custom built in the U.S. They’re going to go overseas and get them built. Will they be as good as mine? I don’t think so. But I’ll still have to be competitive on price.”
Photo by The New York Times.